My Ace in the Hole Turned Into a Pair of Jokers!

I remember clearly, right down to what I was wearing, when I had my first chew. I was 14 and it was plug tobacco that I bought one night on my way to play hockey in Wisconsin. I have no idea what compelled me to buy plug tobacco but when I tried it I knew immediately that it was a mistake. I threw up for an hour afterward.

Two years later, I was on my way to becoming a national level athlete and the older guys around me were dipping Skoal. I don’t remember the exact moment or who it was but someone offered me a dip and I took it. That became one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Within a day, I was buying it for myself and dipping regularly.

When I turned 18, I got a job tending bar in my small college town. One afternoon on my way to work, I stopped to buy a can of Skoal and the store was sold out. That’s when I tried Copenhagen and that’s when my addiction really went to the extreme.

My addiction remained strong and escalated during certain times of my life like when I was a young virile and immortal Marine. Hell, I was a Marine, I skydived, I kayaked, I rode motorcycles, I skied and I climbed rocks. I had seriously injured myself several times participating in those activities and survived, although with a bit more pain and less mobility than the day before, so what was tobacco going to do to me that I wasn’t already doing to myself?

As I grew older, I became aware of my mortality and knew that I was playing a form of Russian roulette with my tobacco use. I knew it was dangerous but I had an ace in the hole. My ace was that my family gene pool was second generation European and all of my grandparents had lived on their own without assistance well into their 90’s. Some even lived into triple digits. I hoped that my strong genes would save me from a simple weed like tobacco.

In the year 2000 my daughter and first child was born. I was 39 years old and I knew then that her birth was my best reason and opportunity to stop dipping. In April, 2000 I quit dipping and while it was hard, it was not crippling and I barely remember it.

In June, 2000, my mother came to visit me and my family and to meet her new granddaughter. I had not seen my mother in about 2 years and I knew the moment she got off the plane that something was wrong. She was small, frail and skinny. Not the strong women of German decent I had known all my life.

My mother began smoking when she was 14 and smoked two packs a day her entire life. Like me, she was counting on her strong genes and otherwise clean living to get her through any rough patch with cancer. During her visit, my mother took several walks pushing my daughter’s stroller through the hills of Santa Barbara where we lived and one afternoon complained of having problems breathing. I chalked it up to her being out of shape, her age (she was 62) and being unaccustomed to the salt air. Two weeks after she returned home to Wisconsin, my sister called to inform me that our mother had been diagnosed that same day with late stage lung cancer and probably didn’t have long to live.

In October, 2000, my mother was dead at the age of 62. She died of lung cancer caused by tobacco.

My gene pool had just become very shallow very quickly and turns out my ace was actually a joker.

I was filled with hate and rage toward tobacco companies and swore that I would never give another penny to those murdering thieves for as long as I lived. But nicotine is a powerful, greedy and deadly drug.

Except for 2 or 3 cigars along the way, I had not touched tobacco in more than 5.5 years. On my way home from the hospital the evening my son was born, I thought to myself, hmm, I quit chewing when my daughter was born, how about one celebratory dip on the day my son was born? What could it hurt?

Now on the birth date of my son in December, 2005, I took the single dip that plunged me back into an addiction deeper and more advanced than it had ever been in my life.

Not only was I dipping more than I ever had, I was now a coward. I was dipping in secret hiding from my wife and family in order to feed my addiction. I was ashamed that I was doing it. I was ashamed that I was constantly going through withdrawal around my family and could not spend an hour with them without finding an excuse to get away for a dip. I was disgusted with myself and ashamed at how it was affecting my family.

Again, I justified my continued use by relying upon my strong genes that had already let my mother down. Now my gene theory was about to take another hit.

My wife is a strong Alsatian woman and an only child who was born and raised in France along the Rhine River bordering Germany. Another strong gene pool but this time it was first generation. My kids have it made from the gene pool perspective as her family history was the same as mine. The women lived into their 90’s and worked every day until they died. The men mostly died in war.

In 2007, my wife received a call from her father’s wife telling her that her father, a long time smoker, had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. 3 months later my wife’s father was dead of lung cancer caused by tobacco. He died having never met either of his only grandchildren.

My ace in the hole had just turned into a pair of jokers…….

Now neither of my children would ever know their grandmother (my mother) or their grandfather (my wife’s father) because of tobacco. How could I keep doing what I was doing and chance taking their father from them?

I was sick and tired of this addiction and being a slave to tobacco but I couldn’t stop. I needed help and I am thankful that on February 23, 2010 I found it. On February 23, 2010 I found killthecan.org. I spent hours reading around the site, looking at pictures and learning the ways of the quit. This was what I needed…some day when I was ready.

On February 24, 2010 I bought a can of Longhorn Fine Cut Natural, took a dip and then just became angry with myself. I threw the rest of the can in the trash, went back to my office and registered on killthecan.org. I spit out my last dip and posted roll with a promise to quit. After a rocky start on KTC, I moved to a different support site that offered a bit more stability which is what I needed at the time. Much to my surprise one of my quit brothers from KTC followed me to the new site and let me know he was watching me. He was not posting on that site but he was watching me and let me know that he would continue to watch me.

After some 35 days or so, I decided that I needed a bit more involvement and chaos to keep my quit strong and returned to the June 2010 group on killethecan.org…….

On June 4, 2010 I hit 100 days without nicotine and the Hall of Fame with the help and support of my quit brothers and sisters on KTC. Without them and without the board, I would never have successfully quit for a single day much less 100 days and counting.

Special thanks to Jack and Sammy. Thanks to KTC and the June 2010 HOF Quit Group.

I promise not to use nicotine today…….

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Tabasco